Typos in Published Books – Who’s to Blame

Where do you un curso de milagros Many self-published authors have made the mistake of hiring a subsidy or print-on-demand publishing company to edit their books, or even a freelance editor, only to find out after the book was published that professional editing was not done and even that changes requested were not made. While many good editors are out there, and POD companies may have good editors working for them, just because a company claims it has good editing services does not mean a quality editor will be assigned to your book.

Trust me. I learned this the hard way. When my book “The Sitting Swing” was first published, I paid a subsidy press to do the editing, and then after I was told the editing was done, the book was published. Not long after, as my book started to gain attention, I was contacted by a major newspaper reviewer who told me she would have written a story about my book for her newspaper but she couldn’t because she found major editing issues. Consequently, I halted sales of my book. Later after I found a traditional publisher and an editor I could trust to do a professional job, I released a revised edition of “The Sitting Swing.”

I don’t base this article simply on one example. Recently another author contacted me who told me:

I have had two unhappy experiences with the same publisher (POD). I realize that there is no recourse according to my contract, and obviously, the first was less distressing than the second….In my case, not only were two sets of galleys not properly corrected (I wasn’t given a final approval, but I had to have faith that the second set would have the corrections made before printing), but the printer left out whole blocks of type. The result..[my book] offered for sale at $17.95 isn’t worth $5! It’s humiliating.

I could provide many more examples, but it’s sufficient to say if you do decide to hire a subsidy or POD publisher, be sure you have a contract that will cover all your bases. Because most of these publishers work within a “cookie cutter” one-size fits all mindset, they probably will not agree to special stipulations within their contracts, but be sure to ask anyway and move on if they will not.

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